Warmer weather caused by climate change is making it harder to maintain outdoor ice rinks during the winter. That’s causing many rinks to replace their frozen surfaces with synthetic, or artificial, ice made from plastic.
Artificial ice rinks are constructed from panels of high-density polyethylene—a hard plastic that can hold up to ice skate blades without developing deep grooves. The plastic also needs to be extra-slick to reduce the slowing force of friction between it and skates. To achieve this, scientists changed the molecular structure of the polyethylene. As a result, it feels like an oily film sits on top of the panels.
Skating on an artificial rink doesn’t feel exactly like skating on real ice. But “when you compare the friction of these plastic panels with friction on real ice, we are very, very close,” says Matthais Scherge. He’s a scientist who performs research for Glice, a synthetic ice company based in Switzerland.